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There are a few tiny changes I made since the version I showed you yesterday.
I’ve detached the leaves that were on the front cover as the material was a bad choice, they had started to fray because they get a lot of handling. I changed them for felt versions which won’t fray. I also made them slightly bigger and they cover the dragonfly button better, it did have a tendency to peak out! I also used my markers to colour the viliene sign into a better approximation of the real thing. I like it with a blue background much better!
Now a quick run through of the finished book!
Cover – “lift the flap” leaves and an opening door with a tiny vicar behind it. Original title page post here.finger puppets page

The next two pages form a double page spread, the “dress the vicar” pages. Details here.

The next two pages feature a ringing bell (not so quiet!) and praying hands. Both pages here.

The next page features the inside of the church and a host of adorable finger puppets. For a closer look at these characters look here.

The baptism page has a jointed arm and can be found here, as can the button flower page. In the next spread. Eagle eyed readers may have noticed one of the buttons was missing but this has been fixed!

The communion page has broken bread which poppers on and off, this jigsaw is surprisingly difficult! Full details can be found here as can the information on the last spread, a colouring page based on the Sunday school.

The back cover is repurposed denim, this lends a bit of structure to the colouring page which is the heaviest page due to the notebook.

And that’s it! Stay tuned for the little dedication I’ll be adding but the book is out in the church and has been since Easter, where it went down well with some of the smaller members of the service who it entertained throughout. Success!

Okay so this has been much delayed but this post is all about how to put together the final church quiet book. Originally I had planned to use book rings but eventually I decided that the less bits that could be lost the better, and since the book would be in a public place I chose to sew the pages together.

To start with I laid all the pages out in order. When deciding the order I tried to make sure bulky pages didn’t end up back to back.

Take any loose parts you can detach and put them to one side so they don’t get in the way. Here you can see my poor finger puppets scattered across the carpet.

Taking the two pages which will end up back to back, place them right sides together.

Pin around the edges, you are going the sew round all four sides leaving a gap for turning, as you would for a bean bag.

Sew around the page turning at the corners, and finish with a backstitch for strength.

Clip the corners to reduce the bulk when turning

Then turn the page right sides out through the turning gap.

Use something like a pencil or a knitting needle to push the corners though so your page is nice and square. This should leave you with a finished page.

Ready to put back and small pieces.

Now do the same for all the other pages except the back page.

The back page is constructed exactly the same way but using a piece of soft denim from a pair of worn out jeans. I cut some scrap from the jeans fabric which was approximately 2 inches. The decorative seam of the jeans was on this scrap.

I sewed a line of stitching alongside this seam on the front page of the book. This formed a wraparound spine for the book with the seam along the front.

The seam could be seen once the fabric is folded back to show the right side of the fabric.

To join the back and front cover I pinned the spine piece to the back cover. I then stitched down this join on the reverse of the fabric.

The inner pages were sewn together using a large zig zag stitch. The interior pages were stitched together in this way in twos.

The bundles were then sewn together by running a straight stitch down two pages close to the spine.

The last two pages of this book!
The first is a communion page showing the bread and wine.

The wine goblet is sewn down as is the plate for the bread. The bread has a dark brown crust and a light brown inside. It comes apart as a jigsaw which attaches to the page with large poppers.

This was actually a lot more difficult than I anticipated, I took them off and then couldn’t put it back together. It took 3 of us quite some time to sort out the positions of the 6 pieces so I added the dotted lines to mark the shapes on as a guide.

Final double page spread represents Sunday school.

There is a notebook and pencils for artistic creations and a clear vinyl pocket to place them in. The brightly coloured zigzag stitches down the side were added as I went along and now they are one of my favourite parts!

This is a pretty standard quit book page but churches always have flowers for special days,

There is loads of fantastic quiet book flowers out there:

1,2 & 5, 3,4, 6
The different versions are all great ideas, like “pick-able” pipe cleaner flowers to put in a vase or button on flowers. I chose to do button flowers for my page with 5 different buttons

The flowers are attached with green ribbon for the stalks, mainly so that the flower heads don’t get lost! They can tuck down in the top of the vase.

My favourite part of this page is the woven apple ribbon round the vase, found in the bargain bin!
The flowers are double sided so you can chose which colours you use.

The second page I want to show you is about baptism, it shows the vicar with a sleepy baby. The baby’s gown is made from a gathered up piece of wide white lace.

The vicars arm is jointed at the elbow with a black button so that he can dip into the font (which is a pocket) and the put the water onto the babies head.

A church is really about the people and not the building and this page shows that. It is modelled on the aisle and alter as you look towards the front of the church.

The pews are pockets in which 6 little finger puppets live. The vicar to hold the service…

The family, mother,father, daughter and son …

B
And a new baby, is it a christening?

The characters are all finished on the back to, do you like the girls little plait?

My favourite of these tiny puppets are defiantly the parents – it’s between the mums pearls and fancy flowery hat and the dads pretty impressive moustache. Which parts do you like best?

Ps general inspiration and finger puppet template from here.
PPS 2 more pages posts to go!
PPPS yesterday day I took the finished article to church with me and gave it over to their care tell you all about it in my wrap up post.

Why hello there! This is part 3 of the church quiet book series of posts, and todays page is a bit simpler. By this point in the process I found this to be a very very good thing!
I thought about calling this post “I find you very a-peel-ing”

This was the last page I did, it was in the original plan but then I couldn’t work out how to do it (it had a complicated buttons and pulley thing going on in my head) so I scrapped it.
How did I finally make it work…

I kept muffling the sound so in the end the bell is just 2 layers of felt, stitched around the edges and left open at the bottom. 2 jingle bells (originally wrapped around a cracker!) we’re attached inside. I also chain stitched the clapper design on the front to make it clear what it’s supposed to be!

It is attached to a button (inside the bell, but it can’t come off) so pulling the cord does make it ring but you have to pull it one way and then the other.

And another very quick page as a bonu

Originally inspired by the robot hand in the Jedi quiet book (by someone who incidentally makes the coolest books EVER!) these praying hands are actually a glove. Too small for my hand but big enough for little hands!